Game of Thrones is a show on HBO. It's kind of a big deal. I don't watch TV but even I've heard of it.

The show is so popular, in fact, that it's apparently one of the most pirated shows on TV. Let's take this straight to the top. HBO is owned by Time Warner. What do you think CEO Jeff Bewkes has to say about people watching without an HBO subscription?

Nintendo of America has filed a lawsuit against HackYourConsole.com, a web site that - Nintendo claims in its complaint - promotes selling unauthorized copies of Nintendo titles and game copying devices such as the R4. The website does sell R4 devices, but on its Frequently Asked Questions page, it highlights the fact that using software with the R4 device is probably illegal:

In an interesting and lengthy interview on Games.on.net Trevor Longino, Head of Marketing and PR at GOG.com shares his personal opinions on piracy, file-sharing and game sharing amongst friends. The interview also offers a lot of casual talk about gaming in general, but the most interesting part of the interview has to do with whom Good Old Games considerers its competition.

The French government has decided that one of the tools used in its supposed "three-strikes" copyright enforcement law (commonly called Hadopi) is not necessary. Prior to the change one of the tools that the government had at its disposal was the ability to disconnect individuals who continually engaged in illicit file-sharing of copyrighted materials after several warnings and actions. Now a panel has decided that disconnecting citizens from the Internet as a punishment isn't that good of an idea.

Nintendo, Square Enix and a number of other Japanese game makers have won a major victory in a long-running battle against two distributors of R4 devices. The devices are used to store and play unlicensed (pirated) versions of games for Nintendo's many hand-held devices.

Seguros Universales, one of the largest insurance companies in Guatemala has sued Microsoft over what is being called an unwarranted and extortion-like anti-piracy raid. With the help of local law enforcement Microsoft demanded an on the spot payment of $70,000 from the company for the use of pirated software or they said would have all of a company’s computers confiscated.

Google and Russia's biggest search engine Yandex are voicing their opposition to a new bill that would block sites accused of hosting (in some way) copyrighted material. The new bill, which has already passed Russia's State Duma, is being called Russia's version of the Stop Online Piracy Act. The bill gives intellectual property holders the ability to sue a web site that they claim is hosting copyrighted materials. The accused site then has 72 hours to remove the offending material (without the option of reviewing the claim).

After three years in place and "millions" of threatening letters being sent to alleged illegal file sharers in France, the French three-strikes anti-piracy law Hadopi has finally led to the disconnection of one person from the Internet. The individual, who was not named, faces two weeks without access to certain internet functions like web access and access to P2P software and a 600 euro fine.

The individual was caught sharing a few files online and never responded to earlier warnings.

Legendary Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto says that used games are less of a concern than the elephant that has always been in the room: piracy. Speaking to CVG Nintendo's most prominent and prolific game creators said that piracy is a bigger threat to his company's business than the used games market.

A Russian coder and hacker known only as "Barabus" has ported Ska Studios popular "M" rated XBLA action game The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile to the PC. But before you celebrate, this PC version of the game is not an official port and doesn't exactly have the blessing of Ska Studios founder James Silva. It is basically pirated version of the game.

Barabus defends his action by arguing that the developer of the game should have made a PC port himself and that by not doing so is "not very nice."

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) released its 2012 Annual Report (PDF) today, revealing that it sent a total of 3.4 million takedown notices for copyright infringement and helped remove more than 99,500 Google links containing infringed game files during 2012. The trade group that represents the video game industry (and operates the ESRB and the E3 trade show) also said that it helped to create a 10 percent decrease from 2011 in the speed of removing infringing files.

The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) has released its 2013 Special 301 Report, detailing regions outside of the United States that are havens for piracy and do not enforce US copyrights. At the top of that list (which mentions 40 different countries) is Russia. Russia is named in the Priority Watch List, along with Algeria, Argentina, Chile, China, India, Indonesia, Venezuela, and Pakistan. China gets a lot of attention in this particular report, as does Russia.

Developer Greenheart Games has released a "cracked version" of its $8 PC and Mac title Game Dev Tycoon on torrents that's specifically for pirates. The cracked version of the game causes game development studios in the sim go bankrupt due to rampant in-game piracy. Greenheart claims that the pirated version of the game made up 93 percent of its player base at launch, and caused an outburst from pirates complaining about their in-game titles failing through (ironically) piracy.

House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) announced yesterday plans to conduct a serious of hearings aimed at identifying problems with U.S. copyright laws and updating them for the modern digital age. Goodlatte was a key sponsor of the failed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) last year alongside the bill's author, former chairman of the Judiciary Committee Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas).

If you live in Russia and enjoy piracy, then you'll probably be delighted to hear that the Russian government thinks it is a waste of time to pursue you or any other person with any kind of serious punishment. Those who are foolish enough to run a piracy website better watch their backs though.

While Cox Communications may have declined the offer to join the "six-strikes" copyright enforcement and educational program (the Copyright Alert System) that a lot of other service providers have in the United States, that doesn't mean it isn't enforcing its own rules. Cox apparently has a 10+ Strikes program to deal with those who download and share copyrighted material illegally. Cox has an estimated 3.5 million subscribers here in the U.S.

Today the Spanish Government released details on amendments to its copyright law (so-called Sinde Law, which was instituted in 2012) that will provide more protections to rights holders and offer stricter rules against infringers. At a press conference this week, Spain's Culture Minister José Ignacio Wert said that the new reforms have three objectives.

George R.R. Martin, prolific fantasy author and the creator of the A Song of Ice and Fire book series on which HBO's hit TV series is based, took questions before yesterday's Game of Thrones screening for the new season set to air later this month.

Martin had some pretty interesting things to say about two subjects that get talked about here on GamePolitics: video games and piracy. First, when asked about video games Martin said that he loves them, though his obsessive play sessions tended to get in the way of his work so he has avoided them for quite a long time:

In a recent blog post Super Meat Boy developer Tommy Refenes argues that using DRM to keep games from being pirated and general apathy ultimately hurts developers. He also notes that applying loss prevention techniques to digital products doesn't work in the space.

On this week's show, hosts Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight are joined by James Fudge to discuss the new Six Strikes anti-piracy scheme, Time Warner Cable's insistence that customers don't want faster broadband and the latest poll on the PS4's lack of backwards compatibility. Download it now: SuperPAC Episode 43 (1 hour, 14 minutes) 67.8 MB. You can also check out the show on YouTube if you prefer an unedited and more visual experience.

While the "six strikes" anti-piracy program agreed upon by Internet service providers and intellectually property owners went into effect this week, service providers and the entertainment industry have not been so keen on sharing what the ramifications are if users are accused of engaging in copyright infringement online. Most ISPs have claimed that six strikes is simply a program to educate consumers on the evils of illegally downloading and sharing copyrighted materials and that it has very little to do with punishing individuals.

Every year rights holders get to offer their input in the U.S. Trade Representative’s Special 301 report, identifying piracy sites and offering recommendations on how best to combat piracy both online and offline. In a special letter, Wii, Wii U and 3DS maker Nintendo offers its two cents on the issue. First, Nintendo points out that it is suffering major losses at the hands of online piracy:

According to DSL Reports, the "six strikes" copyright enforcement scheme agreed upon by rights holders in the music and movie industry and various internet service providers will go into effect today. The anti-piracy enforcement efforts facilitated by the Center for Copyright Information and ISP's will warn internet users when they are accused of infringement with notices and redirection to educational materials on copyright infringement laws.

A patent filed for in 2011 by Sony Computer Entertainment America (and unearthed last week by web site Dark Zero) uses load times to determine if software being loaded into a system is legitimate or pirated.

The patent, "BENCHMARK MEASUREMENT FOR LEGITIMATE DUPLICATION VALIDATION," is described as follows in the patent application:

Microsoft promises "vigorous action" against those individuals who downloaded a pirated version of Gears of War: Judgment. The complete copy of Gears of War: Judgment appeared on internet torrent sites overnight and some decided to download it and play it (some played it online as well), much to the dismay of Microsoft.

The creators of the Zelda-ish 8-bit adventure game Anodyne say that spending just a few dollars to have their game featured on the front page of The Pirate Bay drove more sales than videos or reviews ever could. In a post mortem on the experiment over on the developers' blog, they revealed that they only paid $7 to have their game highlighted on the front page.

"First, it cost $7 to do the promo, all $7 of which were for paying our hosting provider for bandwidth, Nearlyfreespeech.net. There were no other costs."

Happy President's Day! You know, the made-up holiday where we honor two presidents with one half-assed holiday. Don't President Lincoln and President George Washington deserve separate days to be honored properly? Apparently not. Anyway.. on this week's show hosts Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight talk about the file-sharing case headed to the Supreme Court, the President's executive order on cybersecurity, the latest poll results, and more. Let freedom ring.

The United States government has weighed in on the Jammie Thomas-Rasset v. Capitol Records file-sharing case, siding with the RIAA and the recording industry and asking the U.S. Supreme Court to deny Thomas-Rasset the Writ of Certiorari she seeks. The case is the longest running file-sharing case to date, and the first to be heard by the Supreme Court (previously the Court refused to hear two cases related to file-sharing damages).

Two U.S. lawmakers have asked federal prosecutors at the Department of Justice to answer a series of questions about the prosecution of Reddit co-founder and internet activist Aaron Swartz. In a letter to US Attorney General Eric Holder, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Elijah Cummings (D-MD) want to DOJ to explain why federal prosecutors sought up to 50 years in prison and $1 million in fines for Swartz, who committed suicide prior to his trial. Swartz was arrested in 2011 for downloading 4.8 million documents from the academic archive JSTOR.

Well it is official - the country of Antigua is one step closer to launching a legal piracy portal - according to TorrentFreak. At a meeting in Geneva, Switzerland today the World Trade Organization (WTO) officially granted Antigua’s request to suspend U.S. copyrights - confirming a 2007 preliminary authorization given by the WTO to the Caribbean island.

Shout box

Infophile: @Matt: Apparently Dan Aykroyd actually is involved. We don't know how yet, though, but he's apparently going to be in the movie in some way.08/02/2015 - 4:17am

Mattsworkname: I still hold that not having the origonal cast invovled in any way hurts this movie, and unless the 4 actresses in the lead roles can some how measure up to the comic timing of the origonal cast, i just don't see it being a success08/02/2015 - 12:46am

Mattsworkname: Mecha: regardless of what you think of it, GB 2 was a finanical success and for it time did well with audiances ,even if it wasnt as popular as the first08/02/2015 - 12:45am

MechaTama31: I think they're better off trying to do something different, than trying to be exactly the same and having every little difference held up as a shortcoming. Uncanny valley.08/01/2015 - 11:57pm

MechaTama31: Having the original cast didn't do much for... that pink-slimed atrocity which we must never speak of.08/01/2015 - 11:56pm

Mattsworkname: Andrew: If the new ghostbusters bombs, I cant help but feel it'll be cause it removed the origonal cast and changed the formula to much08/01/2015 - 8:31pm

Andrew Eisen: Not the best look but that appears to be a PKE meter hanging from McCarthy's belt.08/01/2015 - 7:34pm

Mattsworkname: You know what game is a lot of fun? rocket league. It' s a soccer game thats actually fun to play cause your A Freaking CAR!08/01/2015 - 7:02pm

Mattsworkname: Nomad colossus did a little video about it, showing the world and what can be explored in it's current form. It's worth a look, and he uses text for commentary as not to break the immerison08/01/2015 - 5:49pm

Mattsworkname: I feel some more mobility would have made it more interesting and I feel that a larger more diverse landscape with better graphiscs would help, but as a concept, it interests me08/01/2015 - 5:48pm

Andrew Eisen: Huh. I guess I'll have to check out a Let's Play to get a sense of the game.08/01/2015 - 5:47pm

Mattsworkname: It did, I found the idea of exploring a world at it's end, exploring the abandoned city of a disappeared alien race and the planets various knooks and crannies intriqued me.08/01/2015 - 5:46pm

Andrew Eisen: Did it appeal to you? If so, what did you find appealing?08/01/2015 - 5:43pm

Mattsworkname: Its an interesting concept, but it's not gonna appeal to everyone thats for sure,08/01/2015 - 5:40pm

Andrew Eisen: That sounds horrifically boring. Doesn't sound like an interesting use of its time dilation premise either. 08/01/2015 - 5:36pm

Mattsworkname: an observer , seeing this sorta frozen world and being able to explore without any restriction other then time. no enimes, no threats, just the chance to explore08/01/2015 - 5:34pm